Flying duct tape means Moriah Drama Club must be back on stage

MORIAH | The new kid who showed up at Melissa Reilly's drama club figured he better be honest from the beginning. He confessed he was loud and boisterous and was no longer welcome at other clubs he had tried to join. Reilly cooly responded, "Just have a seat, you've found your tribe, dear." The duct tape is flying again at the Moriah Drama Club, which will introduce "Doc, Doc … Goose," the first live show it's produced since the Covid pandemic. Reilly said the club is important, particularly to kids not involved in athletics who lost interpersonal connections during the height of the virus. The duct tape is an inside joke since largely spent rolls of the product are hurled in the general direction of actors who make a mistake, swear onstage or otherwise break protocol. Not that in Reilly's drama club, there is a lot of protocol to break. "It's a place where everyone is welcome," she said. "Doc, Doc … Goose" is a madcap comedy focusing on a doctor's office that treats nursery rhyme characters for injuries that, when you think about it, make a lot of sense. The cow pulls a calf muscle jumping over the moon, Jack Be Nimble scorches his underpinnings when he's having a slow day, and so on. Nick Allen, who graduated from Moriah in 2015 and is back on stage to help fill out the cast, said some familiar faces are back onstage, but viewers will be impressed with a new group of talented younger students that tried out this year. "We've always had good people, but these kids are an entirely different beast," he said. "It's like a rebuilding football team that is able to go out and get a lot of studs right off the bat." Allen, who works with kids on a contract basis, said the new members of the club appear to have found their calling. "They all have their shells, but here they come out of their shells pretty quick," he said. Playing a crooked man who needs a chiropractor, Allen messes up on stage and almost swears, but catches himself. No matter, the air is filled with flying duct tape, and Reilly's energetic instruction. "Don't rush," she interrupted rehearsal to tell her cast. "I know it feels awkward, but there is dead air in real life. Don't worry, the audience isn't going anywhere. They paid their $6 and they want to get their money's worth." Reilly, without sounding entirely convincing, says this will be her last year leading the drama club. But it would be a hard call, she knows, considering the palpable love exchanged between her and her students. When the subject comes up, everyone blinks back tears. It would be hard to leave, just as it was hard to be away for two years, rehearsing by zoom. Education suffered during the Covid shutdowns, but it was the arts that suffered the most, Reilly said. Students in many cases lost the one way they had of self-expression — and now they're relieved to return. "It's been amazing to be back," said Emilee Rodriguez, who is graduating and will be performing as a student for the last time. "I've really missed the stage, so this is like coming home after a long trip." Rodriguez said she feared that drama might be waning, particularly after the pandemic-related hiatus. So the new blood, and the students' enthusiasm, have been heartening. "I was very scared there wouldn't be anyone to leave it to," she said. "So it's nice to see all the talent we have and the cast that we have." Reilly said she scaled back her famously exuberant rehearsals to keep from frightening off any of the newbies — with mixed results. "One of them told me I'm in the running for scariest people in the world," she said. "But I've been calm this year." "Doc, Doc … Goose" will be presented Saturday and Sunday, May 21 and 22. Both shows are at 2:30 p.m. Admission is $6.

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Flying duct tape means Moriah Drama Club must be back on stage

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